The mission of the California State University is to educate and prepare California's workforce and prime students for leadership positions. At California State University, Dominguez Hills the departments in the natural and behavioral sciences including biochemistry/chemistry, biology, physics, psychology and sociology, prepare the scientific workforce and are centered on developing their students'potential for research careers in biomedical and behavioral science. Since CSUDH is a minority and Hispanic serving institution, we prepare a high percentage of underrepresented minority students to enter the scientific and biomedical workforce. The proposed MARC program will engage our underrepresented students in activities and opportunities to increase their competitiveness to enter highly ranked PhD programs. Our goals and objectives are designed to affect MARC trainees, pre-MARC students who will eventually become eligible for a MARC traineeship, and other students majoring in the biomedical and behavioral sciences. Achievement of the goals and objectives will prepare MARC students to enter highly selective PhD programs, pre-MARC students to become MARC eligible and strengthen the research training capacity at CSUDH thereby providing opportunities to prepare science majors for graduate level work and/or careers in biomedical and behavioral research. We project that at the end of the funding cycle we will have increased the number of CSUDH science students, especially underrepresented minority students, who apply for and gain acceptance into highly competitive PhD programs. Along the way, these students will become productive scientists as undergraduates by presenting their work at professional conferences and publishing in peer reviewed scientific journals. Our evaluation process will demonstrate that we will have contributed to the development of underrepresented minority students and that our program has fostered them into our Nation's biomedical and scientific workforce. Public Health Relevance Statement: The MARC USTAR training program at CSUDH will increase the numbers of underrepresented minority students entering PhD programs leading to research careers in the biomedical and behavioral sciences. These future scientists will add to the biomedical workforce of our Nation.